The Day of the Ninth
by Punitor567
Summary: He was the Doctor, a 903-year-old Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, in the faraway constellation Kasterborous. He was the Doctor and, to save the universe, he had killed his own people. He was the first face after the war and the Moment came to him and told him, "Gallifrey falls no more." This is the story of the Ninth Doctor's participation in The Day of the Doctor.


**You know, I still find it sad that Eccleston didn't show up for the 50** **th** **Anniversary special. Nine was in my opinion, one of the best Doctors. He had his shining moment the very first episode (basically, their Establishing Doctor Moment.) where Eleven took the penultimate episode of his first season to reach. Well, this is just my opinion, not any of yours.**

 **So a while back, I was on TVTropes and I read this one entry going "Imagine how Nine would have whooped when the Moment told him Gallifrey stands." This idea came to mind and by now most of you have gotten bored of reading this bolded author's note, so I'll skip straight to the story.**

 **Obligatory Disclaimer: My ownership of Doctor Who is more fleeting than Eleven's ownership of a fez.**

 ***~B~***

 **The Day of the Ninth**

"Nestene Consciousness, easy," the Doctor said, snapping his fingers.

"You were useless in there," Rose Tyler shot back, "you'd be dead if it wasn't for me."

"… Yes, I would. Thank you," the Doctor replied sincerely. "Right then! I'll be off. Unless, uh, I don't know, you could come with me."

Rose's smile faded slightly. "It goes anywhere, free of charge," the Doctor said.

"D-don't," Mickey said, clearly terrified. "He's – he's an alien, he's a – a thing!"

"He's _not_ invited," clarified the Doctor. "What d'you think?"

Rose hesitated, considering.

"You could stay here, fill your life with work and food and sleep, or you could go, uh … anywhere."

"… Is it always this dangerous?" Rose asked.

"Yeah!" the Doctor replied enthusiastically.

Mickey shot up from where he was practically in an upright fetal position and hugged Rose, trying to stop her. "Yeah, I can't," Rose said finally, "I've, um, I've gotta go and find my mum and, someone's gotta look after this stupid lump," she said, patting Mickey's shoulder.

After a brief silence the Doctor replied, "Okay. See you around."

The Doctor was saddened, and he tried his best to hide it. The door of the TARDIS closed.

 _VWORP-VWORP-VWORP-VWORP-VWORP_

And then it faded out of sight.

*~B~*

He was the Doctor, a 903-year-old Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, in the faraway constellation of Kasterborous. He had lived a long life, had worn many faces and he had done many things.

He was the Doctor and he was the last of his kind. He had fought on the front lines of the last great Time War, the long, long war between his people and the Daleks, and whole civilizations had gone down in the crossfire.

He was the Doctor and in his long life he had achieved many victories and faced many failures. Yet Fate's irony had made it so that his greatest victory was also his ultimate failure.

He was the Doctor and he had killed all of his kind.

The Doctor walked around the TARDIS console. It had been only a hundred years since the last day of the Time War, the day he killed them all. It had been a hundred years since he had finally shed the face that had committed so many war crimes, so many sins; the face that he had renounced, the one that could not possibly be called the Doctor. But a hundred years would never be enough. No, he could live for another full millennia and the guilt of his actions would remain as heavy as they were on that fateful day.

The Doctor sighed. "Right then, where do we go now?" he said to himself.

"For starters, how about somewhere you could wipe that morbidity off your face?" said a voice behind him.

He wheeled around in shock, and found the last person he expected to see.

"What – who are you?" Of course, the last person he expected to see was a strange girl sitting on the railings of the console room.

"Oh, really? I choose a face that you of all of you had a connection with and you don't recognize – no, hold on. That's in the future. Ugh, tenses."

Slowly, comprehension dawned. He did know that face. "Rose?" he asked incredulously. But it couldn't be her. And what was she wearing…?

"…That's Gallifreyan attire," the Doctor said, frowning.

"Well, I did try to be familiar," 'Rose' said, smiling cheekily.

"Who are you?"

Mock affront showed on her face. "Really, you don't recognize me? I thought you remembered the name and face of every girl you met. And you certainly met a lot."

"Whoever you are, you're clearly not going to give a straight answer, so how the hell did you get in here?"

"Well, I'm not really in here. My console is still back in that hut of yours on Gallifrey."

Finally the Doctor realized who she was. All little traces of humor and cheerfulness vanished. "You're the Moment. You're the weapon I used to kill them all."

"He shoots, and he scores!" the Moment exclaimed. The Doctor turned away. "What do you want?"

"So I have to want something?"

"You shouldn't even be here. You can't be here. Just go back and leave me alone."

"If you really wanted to be alone, you wouldn't have offered Rose Tyler to come with you," the Moment countered.

"GO BACK!"

Silence rang loudly after the shout, punctuated only by the sound of the TARDIS's engines. The Doctor, weary and defeated and miserable, said weakly, "Go back. I don't want to talk about it, or whatever it is you want to talk about."

"I don't want to talk, Doctor," the Moment said softly. "I want to show you something. I want to help you."

"Show me? Show me what?"

"That you saved Gallifrey."

The Doctor burst out laughing, but it was humorless. "You come all this way, just to torture me with empty hopes?"

"I'm giving you a fact."

"Gallifrey fell. My people died, the Daleks died. I used you to kill them and I would know, because I was there!"

"Gallifrey falls no more."

"It fell. It fell and it burned and I made it happen," the Doctor said angrily, rounding on her. "What is it you want from me, eh? Do you want to take me back to then? The event is time locked, so I don't know how you got out, but since you did, that means you can take me back with you, doesn't it? Is that what you want? To make me relive that moment a second time? Once wasn't enough?!"

"You relive that moment every second of your life, Doctor. You constantly wonder if you could have done things differently, but since you still believe that there was no other option."

"There WAS no other option!"

"Yes there was. I would know, because I was there. Actually, I'm still there," the Moment said, momentarily looking confused. "How do you all do it? All those tenses, was, is, will be?"

The Doctor turned away yet again, but somehow the Moment was right in front of him. "You know what, why do you even look like that?" he demanded.

"Because it's a very familiar face. Pay attention, Doctor."

"I've only met her once, and that was a hundred years ago."

"Well, it will be a familiar face, given that you–" the Moment clamped her mouth shut. "Oops."

"Oops? Oops what?"

"Spoilers," she said cheekily. "Ah. So that's why that woman keeps saying that. It's just too fun."

"Look, you've had your chat, now can you please leave me be?" the Doctor asked, an almost pleading tone in his voice.

"Can you leave yourself be, Doctor? Can you, when you need your help to save Gallifrey?"

He stared at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

The Moment just grinned coyly and turned to the TARDIS. "What are you waiting for? You know what to do, hop to it!"

The TARDIS rumbled and shook. The Doctor stumbled. "What was that? What did you do?"

"I told her to take us where you needed to go. Though that is what she always does. Oh, she's complaining about her doors now."

"What – I don't have a voice control system here!"

"Actually you do, you just don't use it. Oops, spoilers. But that wasn't it either. I just talked to her."

"The TARDIS can't talk!"

The Moment turned back to the console. "I pity you. Don't worry, you know your chance is coming soon."

The monitor beeped. "Ooh, we're here," the Moment exclaimed.

"Here where?"

"Just beyond the Dalek ships firing on Gallifrey, on the last day of the Time War."

"Oh, so that's it, then? You really are going to force me to watch this happen again?"

The Moment didn't answer and instead walked away from him and around the console. "Well, you've got your wish!" the Doctor retorted, following her. "I don't have to see it again, I see it every night when I go to sleep! Now get the hell out of my TARDIS so I can leave and–"

The Moment stopped him in his tracks by putting a finger to his lips. "Hush," she reprimanded. "Look," she said, pointing at the monitor.

He turned and saw nothing. "Look at what?"

The Moment groaned in exasperation. "Oh for the love of – I'm being serious here! Just show him already!"

"Are you seriously talking to _my_ TARDIS?"

"Sentient ship, sentient superweapon. Use your head, Doctor! Now look!" she said.

He looked back at the monitor and saw an ongoing calculation. And finally, that triggered the memories. They came rushing back, and the Doctor stumbled back and hit the railing. "Oh."

"There you go," the Moment said, smiling.

"Oh! _**OH! FANTASTIC! THAT IS ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!**_ "

The Doctor whooped and jumped around in sheer joy. He ran around the console room, shouting and yelling like a nine-year-old kid and hugged the Moment tightly. "FANTASTIC!" he shouted again.

"You know, you still have to do your part in it, so whenever you're done hugging…" the Moment said.

"Right. Sorry. Actually, not sorry."

"Easy, big boy. You've still got it all coming."

The Doctor released her and quickly began fiddling with the controls. The image on the screen changed, now showing the Gallifreyan War Council.

"You might say, I've been doing this all my lives," a voice said, but no one among the Council had spoken. "Who was that?" the Doctor said. Many more voices spoke, but he recognized those as his past selves.

"That's the next you. Anyway, get cracking already."

"The calculations are still incomplete!" the Doctor said. No sooner had he said it that a transmission came from somewhere. It was the finished calculation.

"What?" the Doctor said, confused.

"You live a very long life, Doctor," the Moment reminded him. "But never mind that, hurry!"

"Yes. Yes, of course," the Doctor said, slowly beginning to grin like a Cheshire cat. "And for my next trick: I'm going to save Gallifrey!"

The TARDIS shuddered.

"Sir! The Daleks know that something is happening! They're increasing their firepower!" a Councilman said. The council room quaked violently.

"Do it, Doctor," the General said. "Just do it. Do it!"

"…Okay," said another unfamiliar voice. The Doctor guessed it was another future him. _Huh. I've got a future. Fantastic._

"Gentlemen," said the voice, "we're ready. GERONIMO!"

"Allons-Y!" said the other voice.

 _Do I really say that?_ the Doctor wondered. And then he heard his warrior-self echoing his thoughts: "Oh for God's sake. Gallifrey stands!"

The Doctor chuckled. Perhaps that man was still the Doctor. "And here we go! This time around, everybody lives!" he exclaimed.

Thirteen TARDISes spun around Gallifrey, and soon Gallifrey was no more and the Daleks destroyed themselves.

*~B~*

Inside the TARDIS, the only sound was the whirring of the engine, as the Doctor and the Moment sat side by side in the doorway, gazing out at the space where moments before, Gallifrey had stood under fire. Dalek wreckage drifted across space and once in a while the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to check whether they really were dead.

Finally he asked the question. "I'm going to forget all this, aren't I?"

"Let's see, how did Face Number Eleven slash Twelve put it? 'The time streams are out of sync. You can't retain it, no.' Really, the amount of gibberish you cough up on a regular basis. While you're right most of the time, that's not at all how it works. Oh! No one's ever said that to you, have they! it's usually the other way around."

"… So I'm going to wake up tomorrow thinking that I still burned down Gallifrey."

"Well, if it's any consolation, in about 300 years you will remember again, permanently. Though that'll be the third time we meet – or actually the twelfth time."

The Doctor laughed. "Well, I've managed one hundred. Three more centuries shouldn't be a problem." He stood up and closed the doors.

"Goodbye, Doctor. Sleep well," the Moment said. When he looked back, she was gone.

The TARDIS shook and rumbled, as it disappeared from Gallifreyan space.

*~B~*

He was the Doctor, a 903-year-old Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, in the faraway constellation of Kasterborous. He had lived a long life, had worn many faces and he had done many things.

He was the Doctor and he was the last of his kind. He had fought on the front lines of the last great Time War, the long, long war between his people and the Daleks, and whole civilizations had gone down in the crossfire.

He was the Doctor and in his long life he had achieved many victories and faced many failures. Yet Fate's irony had made it so that his greatest victory was also his ultimate failure.

He was the Doctor and he had killed all of his kind.

And yet, for the moment, he was cheerful. Cheerful enough to give it another go.

*~B~*

 _VWORP-VWORP-VWORP-VWORP-VWORP_

Rose Tyler turned back in surprise and saw the TARDIS reappearing. The door opened.

"By the way," the Doctor said, poking his head out, "did I mention? It also travels in time."

Rose smiled and the Doctor stepped aside. She turned to Mickey. "Thanks," she said.

"Thanks for what?" Mickey asked.

"Exactly." She gave him a kiss, then ran into the open doors of the wondrous blue box, awaiting the adventure of a lifetime.

It would certainly be fantastic.

*~B~*

 **Aaaand done. So, how was it? Good enough, or not so good? Read and review please.**

 **Punitor567 out. El Psy Congroo.**


End file.
